


The Early Bird

by Philomytha



Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-05
Updated: 2014-01-05
Packaged: 2018-01-07 10:22:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1118761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Philomytha/pseuds/Philomytha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The early bird catches the worm. Dr Walid's first meeting with Nightingale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Early Bird

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lindenharp](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lindenharp/gifts).



Dr Abdul Haqq Walid gave a yawn and plodded down towards his Tube station. The night shift hadn't been that unusual, but the gastric ward was always busy at this time of year. Christmas parties, improperly refrigerated canapés and insufficiently cooked poultry, and while for most people it meant a miserable day or so at home, for some it meant the UCH's gastric ward. He pulled the scarf up over his mouth and nose against the haze of smoke and dust, and as he did so, he saw movement in an unlit alley. He carried on walking while his sleepy mind caught up with what he had seen. A figure emerging up a staircase from a basement flat, and falling heavily. He paused and tried to get a better look across the busy road, but there didn't seem to be anyone else about. And going to help people, even though in all probability it was a drunk or a junkie, was both his job description and religious duty. His coffee, toast and bed were going to have to wait. 

He crossed the road, ducking between a Ford Anglia and a red bus, and went into the alley. The hazy morning light wasn't bright enough for him to get a good view until he was close, but he hadn't imagined it. There was someone lying at the top of the stairs, propped up on one elbow unsteadily.

"Good morning," Walid said clearly. "I'm a doctor. Do you need any help?"

As he got close, he could see the man. He looked in his early seventies, to Walid's experienced eye, and was very well-dressed as if for an evening out, in a tailored suit with a navy silk handkerchief in his breast pocket and a trilby hat that had fallen off and was lying nearby. The suit had been well cared-for, but was now smudged with dust and there were cobwebs clinging to his shoulders as if he'd been rolling on the floor of an abandoned cellar. He turned to look at Walid, and his face was very pale and his pupils dilated. Drugged, ill? The alley had the usual rubbish-and-stale-urine odour, but he didn't catch the whiff of alcohol. 

"What happened?" Walid repeated.

"It bit me," said the man in a very precise RP accent. He sat up unsteadily, and Walid caught him by the shoulders. "You shouldn't be here. Go, go," the man continued. He made an effort to stand, and Walid saw that he was only using his right arm. His left sleeve was torn, with dark bloodstains on the wool and the white cotton of the shirt below. Walid leaned in to look more closely, catching the man's arm in a loose hold. If it was a bite, it was like nothing Walid had seen before, not a dog or a cat or a human or even a donkey, one memorable day working with the trauma team as a junior house officer. Deep close-set puncture wounds oozing blood. He was going to need a tetanus jab later, but that wasn't the most urgent problem. The surrounding skin was red and swelling in a way he didn't like the look of at all. 

"Don't try to move," Walid countered. "What did this?"

The man ignored both the instruction and the question, and managed to lever himself to his feet with a silver-topped cane. "You really must go, right now," he said, looking briefly at Walid. "It's not safe."

"You need to go to hospital," Walid said patiently, "and get that bite looked at."

"Not yet." The man suddenly turned his head as if he'd heard a noise, though Walid had heard nothing. Then, from behind an overflowing municipal dustbin, something came out. It was the size of a large dog, but definitely not a dog, nor any animal Walid had seen before. It was a rich dark green colour, with yellow and orange markings on its small reptilian head. It had six limbs, four to walk on and a further pair at the front, short and clawed like a tyrannosaurus, and a long barbed tail. And it had wings, folded now as it walked deliberately forwards. 

Its jaw, Walid noticed with the sudden surprising calm he felt when faced with a difficult operation, was exactly shaped to match the bite mark on the man's arm, and it had long white teeth, very sharp. It advanced on them. 

Walid's primitive instincts all told him to run. But he was a doctor and he had a patient, and his duty was here. And the old man, it seemed, was not going to run. Instead he planted his cane firmly on the ground and leaned on it and on Walid, and said in an unexpectedly powerful voice, "You should not be here." 

"There is food here," the creature said, and Walid stared, his terror forgotten for a moment as he tried to work out how the voice had come from a jaw and neck that couldn't possibly have a voicebox. "Plenty of food."

"This city is under my protection," the man responded, his voice resonating around the alley. "You must leave. The arrangement still stands." 

"You," the creature responded scornfully. "Old man. What can you do to stop such as I?" 

"I can do enough." The man raised his cane, and white lightning stabbed from its end. The creature hissed and sprang into the air. It had a wingspan of about six feet and could only go forwards in the alley, straight at them. Walid ducked and tried to pull the man down with him as it flew low towards their heads, but he shook Walid off and raised the cane higher. There was a light so bright it dazzled Walid, and when he looked up again, the creature was gone and the man was swaying back. Walid steadied him and looked over his shoulder again, but saw nothing.

The dragon, said a voice from childhood in his head. It was a dragon. And the old man was--Walid didn't want to think about what he was. A patient, said the rest of his mind. Were dragons venomous? From the looks of the man, very likely. Dr Stevenson wasn't going to be impressed with this one, and right on the change of shift too. 

"You need to go to hospital," he told the man again. "It's probably quicker to walk than to wait for an ambulance, if you can manage." Barely a hundred yards to an entrance, where he could get a porter and a wheelchair. 

"No," said the man faintly. "Not hospital. I need to get back to the Folly." 

"To where? Why?"

"Because you don't have what I need for the poison there," he said. "If you truly want to be helpful, walk with me around to Russell Square." 

"What do you need for the poison?" Walid asked. 

"Fairy wine," said the man. 

Walid wasn't sure he'd heard correctly. "Fairy wine?" It shouldn't be that much of a surprise, he supposed, given that he'd just seen a dragon and what he strongly suspected was magic. 

The man nodded brusquely and started forwards, clearly indicating that he was going whether Walid agreed or not, then stumbled. Walid found himself offering an arm and pacing the man out of the alley and in the opposite direction from the hospital, towards Russell Square. They were jostled by the crowds of shift workers leaving and arriving as they rounded the corner and into the square. The man headed for the south side, straight across the park, and finally came to a halt outside one of the grander houses, with a flight of stairs up to the double doors. 

"Thank you," the man said. "I'll be fine from here."

"No," Walid said, and kept a hold on the man up the steps to the door. "I think I'll stay. Just in case your fairy wine doesn't do the trick." 

The man seemed about to protest for a moment, but then the door swung open--though Walid hadn't seen him touch it, or ring a bell--and they went in. Walid looked around in sudden surprise, because it was a large entrance area like the foyer of a grand hotel, but utterly deserted. Or so he thought, but a moment later there he had an impression of sudden movement, black and white, and a hissing that raised the hairs on his neck. 

There was a woman dressed as a maid in front of him, black eyes flickering between Walid and the old man, and for a second Walid thought he saw her mouth open and a row of pointed and dangerous teeth that reminded him of the dragon. 

"It's all right, Molly," the old man said. "He's a doctor." 

The woman--Molly--gave Walid a look of extremely provisional acceptance, but the hissing stopped and she moved to the old man's other side. Supporting him between them, they went through the grand atrium and towards a small door that led through a passage and into a large cool room kitted out like an old fashioned apothecary's office. There was an examining couch that looked like it had been borrowed from a museum, or possibly should be loaned to a museum, and Walid reluctantly guided the old man onto it, since there wasn't any better option. Fortunately it seemed to still be strong enough to support a person's weight. 

"Fairy wine," the old man said, and Molly moved quickly across the room to a long row of shelves, stored out of the light, and selected a small earthenware jug. Walid saw a set of old-fashioned physician's tools on a table, and picked up a pair of large scissors. The old man grimaced as he cut away the sleeve to reveal the bite. It had grown worse since his first examination barely ten minutes ago, swollen up to his elbow and with angry red streaks on his hand. His pulse was fast and his breathing shallow, and he was shivering. 

If this went wrong, the BMA would destroy him. This man belonged in a hospital, in a poison control unit, right now. But he had just seen a dragon, and perhaps there were more things the BMA didn't know about. 

Molly placed the earthenware jug on the table beside the couch, and the old man picked it up, but could no longer use his left arm or hand to break the wax seal or pull out the stopper. 

"What do you do with this?" Walid asked, taking it from him and cautiously examining it. The seal was of black wax and appeared intact. 

"Pour it over," he said. 

Walid broke the seal with his thumb, and pulled out the stopper, then sniffed the bottle. It smelled a little like Drambuie, sweet and herbal, but with an additional floral tinge that reminded him of lilacs. It didn't smell like something he should pour over this very serious venomous bite. There was sweat on the old man's face now. 

"Go on," he said. 

Dr Walid looked at his patient and poured a few drops of the liquid onto the centre of the bite. The old man hissed, and alarmingly, the wound sizzled. Walid stopped, but the old man made a gesture to continue. It was obviously doing _something_. Walid poured about fifty millilitres of the 'fairy wine' onto the bite. 

The old man's English stiff upper lip struggled, and he turned his face away, breathing unsteadily. Walid took another set of observations: no change. He looked back at the bite, and blinked. Right under his eyes, the swelling was reducing, the red streaks fading. Walid looked at his watch, and observed carefully. Two and a half minutes after the treatment, the swelling and redness had reduced to little more than what was normal for this kind of soft tissue injury. 

"That," he said, "is very effective. I'd like to clean and dress this now, if you have the materials." He looked at Molly, who had been standing against the wall so still that he'd almost forgotten she was there. 

The old man probed his arm gingerly with his fingertips. "I'm sure Molly can find what you require," he said. 

Walid scrubbed his hands and accepted the kit Molly provided. Like the rest of the room, it was dated, but it had what he needed. A few minutes of work and there was a neat bandage covering the bite. 

"I'm grateful for your assistance, Dr--" The man looked at him inquiringly.

"Walid," he said, and waited for the double-take, the questions, the surprise.

"Dr Walid," was all the old man said, as if he hadn't noticed. "My name is Nightingale."

Perhaps people with unusual names themselves didn't take notice of a red-headed Scot with a Muslim name, Walid supposed, or else a man who dealt with dragons and fairies on a regular basis couldn't be startled by anything as mundane as a name. 

"You should go to your GP as soon as possible to get a broad-spectrum antibiotic and check your tetanus status," Walid said. "And rest." 

Nightingale gave a thin smile. "In my experience," he said, "I can tell you that if you go to the GP with a dragon bite, they don't stop with antibiotics and tetanus shots." 

Hearing him say the word 'dragon' out loud was still a shock, even after seeing the creature, and Walid turned away for a moment and paced around the office. "Was that really a dragon?" he asked. 

"You saw it," Nightingale replied. "What do you think?"

Walid came back to stand by the examining table. "I don't understand how it could speak," he said. "It hasn't got a voice box, and lizards don't have the right kind of breath control to speak in any event. It's anatomically impossible." 

Nightingale raised his eyebrows. "I'm afraid I don't know how it works," he offered.

"It would be fascinating to dissect. I don't suppose--"

"You are a most unusual doctor," Nightingale said. He began to sit up, and Walid put a hand on his back in support. 

"Slowly, now," he said. "I have no idea what the venom or the fairy wine did, but it was clearly serious."

"Indeed," said Nightingale. "The bite of an adult dragon is usually fatal without rapid treatment." He swung his legs off the table and sat upright. "Fortunately we keep most things in here." 

Walid looked at the rows of jars and bottles, labelled by hand in old-fashioned script. "Can I take a sample of your fairy wine, please?" he said. "For analysis?"

Again Nightingale looked taken aback. "I--yes, if you wish. Though I have no idea what you'll find." 

"Nor do I," said Walid cheerfully. "That's why I want to take a look. I wish I had a sample of the venom too."

He found a small empty glass jar, washed it thoroughly and poured another twenty ml or so of the 'fairy wine' into it, screwed on the lid and labelled it carefully. Nightingale stood up, wavered a moment and found his balance. Molly moved towards him with a protective air, and Walid noticed that she hadn't spoken yet. 

"Will you be able to keep an eye on him for the next couple of days?" he asked her. "Just in case this miracle cure--"

"Magical cure," Nightingale corrected, with a professorial air.

"--magical cure," he said doubtfully, "doesn't quite fix everything?" 

She nodded gravely. 

"Molly will fuss more than a whole ward of nurses," said Nightingale. "You've no need to worry."

"Let me just note all this down," said Walid. 

There was an old medical notepad on a table, and Molly silently placed a pen beside it. He hadn't seen her go to fetch one. Walid jotted down a description of the injury, the creature that had apparently inflicted it, the various treatments and his recommendations for follow-up. 

"Can I have your date of birth?" he said. "So that I can append this to your medical records."

Nightingale cleared his throat. "31st December. 1899."

Walid looked up at him. "You're never eighty-six," he protested.

"Well," Nightingale said, "that's the other reason I haven't been to my GP for a while. I think he found me a... confusing ... patient." 

Walid gave a short laugh. "You don't say. You look at least ten years younger than that." 

"I feel ten years younger," Nightingale admitted. "My hearing's been improving, as has the arthritis, and I have more strength. I really don't know what's happening, but I'm quite pleased." 

"Hm." Walid made some additional notes. "And do you have some, ah, _magical_ explanation for that?"

"I'm afraid not. I assume I'm just fortunate in some manner."

"Very fortunate. All right. I'll sort you a prescription and check about the tetanus." He found a pad in his jacket pocket and scribbled on it for a minute, then handed it to Molly. "Perhaps if you take this round to the pharmacy--"

Molly turned to Nightingale, looking anxious. Nightingale took the prescription from her. "I'll take it," he said. 

Something odd there, Walid thought. "No, I want you to rest," he said. "Perhaps I'll get this filled at the hospital pharmacy, check out your records and come back a bit later. And those dressings will need to be checked daily too." Really that was the district nurse's job, but he wanted to come back, wanted to understand this man, this place, understand what he had seen. 

"Molly will be happy to admit you at any time," said Nightingale. "She's taken to you. We don't usually get visitors here." 

Curiosity warred with Walid's medical instincts. The old man should be lying down, not answering his questions about dragons and fairies and magicians. So he swallowed his further queries, pocketed the sample of 'fairy wine' and watched as Molly efficiently shepherded Nightingale out of the apothecary's office and towards the stairs. 

"I'll be back later," Walid said, and began to make his way back to the door. Nightingale gave him a nod. 

"My thanks for the assistance, doctor. I'll look forward to seeing you again." 

As before, the door swung open for him as he drew near, but somehow, he didn't think there was a sensor and a little motor operating it. Walid went back out into the busy street and turned towards the hospital. He knew he should be going home to rest, but his cramped flat didn't seem nearly as inviting as it had when he'd left the hospital, and his mind was humming with questions, with ideas, with possibilities. He'd had a friend at school who'd been into cryptozoology, looking for the Loch Ness monster and reading about Bigfoot and the Beast of Bodmin Moor. He'd listened disbelievingly, but now he was wondering if Hamish had been right all along. His first stop, he thought, would be to go back to that alley and see if he could find any other traces of the dragon. And then back to the lab, to analyse his find. He patted his pocket happily. There was a lot more to learn than he had ever imagined. 


End file.
